Level 69 Permanoob

“Permanoob”

ERECTILE_DEATH Posted:

I’m not reading this thread because I’m sure it’s full of leftist bull**** propaganda. But am I really supposed to believe that humans just came about on this planet by chance? That life simply “evolved” here randomly?

Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll take my God and be over here in the corner when you folks come to your senses.

Level 69 Re-Re

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[WeChall is a ****ty klan]

Level 29 Hacker

“1337”

I’m just posting in this thread to wave my superiority in your face by saying that I don’t care about this debate anymore since neither side has any reason to really listen to the other and how my side is right after all and the other side is totally misguided and irrational.

Creationists believe in creationism because their authorities (god, Bible, church) say so. They think others believe in evolution because Satan has deceived them.

Others believe in evolution because it fits reality and has been demonstrated to be the most likely hypothesis to be correct by the scientific method and supported, not disproven, by further evidence. They believe creationists believe in creation because they are dogmatic and unwilling to give up their beliefs even when presented with evidence.

From everyone’s point of view their side is correct and the other side wrong and since there is no established uniform framework in which the correct model could be debated but rather the framework itself is being debated there is very little chance of swaying either side.

Now I have demonstrated how I am superior and how everyone who disagrees with me is wrong. If some god-obeying citizen criticizes me for fleeing from the debate and takes that as a victory, I only have to say that the Chewbacca defense is not correct. Even if you make the other side silent you haven’t won. For those who say I violate the fifth virtue of rationality I only refer to my earlier points how this argument is not constructive as neither side has a reason to believe the other. And to everyone, screw you guys, I’m going home to eat aborted fetuses for breakfast, on top of toast with marmite.

Level 35 Re-Re

I’m not reading this thread because I’m sure it’s full of leftist bull**** propaganda. But am I really supposed to believe that humans just came about on this planet by chance? That life simply “evolved” here randomly?

Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll take my God and be over here in the corner when you folks come to your senses.

Religion & evolution are not automatically exclusive. Many people (including myself) believe in Theistic Evolution.

And evolution is never ‘random’, either. Otherwise, we’d see birds with gills.

Level 69 Hacker

I pretend to have bp...

Sergeant Cid Posted:

And evolution is never ‘random’, either. Otherwise, we’d see birds with gills.

While evolution isn’t random, mutation (the force behind it) is if you are taking a non-theistic view. As for birds with gills, one could say that a lack of survivability and therefore inability to reproduce is the reason that we don’t see such things. One only needs to look at some of the random mutations in human fetuses and infants to know that any mutation under the sun is at least theoretically possible.

Level 63 Troll

“Flame Retarded”

Dunatis Posted:

I met my first Creationist when having a discussion with some guys in high school about weird things people believe and I mentioned how there were people who thought that “the world was made 6000 years ago in 7 days”. Someone looked at me and with the most serious look on his face said “It was”. I turned around, shut up and was done for the day…

I ran into one creationist who had the (actually pretty interesting) idea that the world was created a few thousand years ago, but God created it billions of years old.

There’s a damn good science fiction story in that idea, but the problem with actually thinking in those terms is basically… well, how do we know we’re not all brains in jars being given false sensory input?

Level 69 Hacker

Richard Whittington

NeoVid Posted:

I ran into one creationist who had the (actually pretty interesting) idea that the world was created a few thousand years ago, but God created it billions of years old.

There’s a damn good science fiction story in that idea, but the problem with actually thinking in those terms is basically… well, how do we know we’re not all brains in jars being given false sensory input?

You mean this of course? The evil genius/demon skepticism I don’t see as a logical next step though, by making the claim that everything could have been made at any point including with people who are mid thought though kind of hurts God in my opinion.

If he gave us free will yet created ANYONE middle aged mid thought, are the actions of that man prior to this creation to weigh on his soul? To claim free will when we were created mid stride is fairly ridiculous or at very least unfair to those who were and were given entire lives and personalities without any chance to shape themselves.

I personally do not believe in either free will or consciousness in the first place nor am I a religious man, but I do find that theory to be an interesting one.

Level 69 Re-Re

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Omphalos hypothesis and the Cartesian daemon are the ultimate hardcore conspiracy theories. Even laypeople who happen to be “very right wing religious” would have a tough time accepting something so esoteric, simply because the implication is very abstract. If God has to go to such great lengths to test people, faith is a rare commodity indeed.

Level 69 Hacker

“Trojan Horse Magnum”

It’s not so much the logical conclusion of such an argument, but it’s a possibility that’s left open by it – if god could have created a world with the clock already set to the year several billion, then he could equally well have created a world with the clock already set to 5 minutes ago and we’d never know the difference. But of course, “and we’d never know the difference” makes it completely untestable, unverifiable and unfalsifiable, so there’s no good reason to believe such a thing except as after the fact justification for another unsupported belief.

Blatant special pleading really – first they say the world is 6000 years old, then we provide the evidence that it looks much much older, so they claim it was created 6000 years ago with billions of years of history already in place.

Dunatis Posted:

I personally do not believe in either free will or consciousness in the first place nor am I a religious man, but I do find that theory to be an interesting one.

Not believing in free will I can understand; I tend to hover back and forward between thinking it’s a very persistent illusion or liking the materalist justification of free will better. But not believing in consciousness… how are you defining it that you don’t invalidate that claim for yourself every time you wake up?

[Altfail, hai guys this is man-man, you’d probably have guessed but just removing all doubt]

Level 69 Hacker

“Trojan Horse Magnum”

I find it general hard to believe in god for the simple idea that if there in fact existed a being powerful enough to great a universe, or even to control evolution and whatnot, I don´t see why it would give a rats bum about us. Given the size of the universe the earth is so small and young I doubt it would not even have noticed us yet. and if we were created the “for what” still remains.

Level 69 Hacker

Richard Whittington

Orifice Posted:

Not believing in free will I can understand; I tend to hover back and forward between thinking it’s a very persistent illusion or liking the materalist justification of free will better. But not believing in consciousness… how are you defining it that you don’t invalidate that claim for yourself every time you wake up?

The lack of free will comes from the materialist “Everything about a person is material” that there is no spirit or soul behind the body. Then if we know the current state of everything as well as it’s momentum/how it works, we can predict the next state. Quantum physics isn’t advanced enough yet to determine with 100% accuracy the location of an electron yet, but if that is where the unpredictability of free will comes in, then everything made of electrons would have it. Personally I think we’ll figure it out eventually and that the human body is simply too complex to predict 100% either.

The self works much in the same way. If there is no soul or immaterial spirit which remains unchanging behind the scenes, then the self would have to be material. At the same time however if would have to remain unchanging enough to be worth defining as a self yet every aspect of a personality can be changed with enough damage to certain parts of the brain. The only thing that can be said to always be shared is the history which can be forgotten or altered in memory. Can you claim to be the same person you were 20 years ago? 10? 5? Where is the line drawn? If no real line CAN be drawn then the line and distinction is entirely arbitrary and a self refers only to a location in space/time at any instant. It’s very useful when trying to speak or refer to distinct physical entities but has no metaphysical truth to it.

If there is no self, then what would a consciousness perceive? At best a single moment in space/time where multiple senses collide inside a living creature. This would have no effect on the creature and would not be limited to any one “individual” either which would go against the standard meaning of a consciousness which is what I don’t really believe in.

Given how we define individuals and that our bodies are comprised of so many other living things right down to individual cells, it doesn’t even always make sense to bumume that life is occurring on the scale of humans and animals. We could be as planets to the bacteria in our bodies and our planets and systems could be the atoms of a larger being. Just as we cannot live without our living constituents, the planet cannot be said to be alive without the life on it, nor can an organ be alive without life in the cells.

I won’t claim to be absolutely right, and saying “I woke up this morning” doesn’t invalidate everything I said simply because our language is set up around the idea of selves and individual consciousness which greatly affects how an individual is perceived. Those who speak multiple languages fluently can tell you how words or entire concepts mean something completely different when translated, or that some ideas cannot be translated at all.

On top of this I’m really bad at expressing my thoughts in words and my time spent as a loner leads to a lot of idiosyncrasies so I mostly hope that the previous rant makes any sense at all Log in to see images!

UnlimitedTyyppi Posted:

I find it general hard to believe in god for the simple idea that if there in fact existed a being powerful enough to great a universe, or even to control evolution and whatnot, I don´t see why it would give a rats bum about us. Given the size of the universe the earth is so small and young I doubt it would not even have noticed us yet. and if we were created the “for what” still remains.

I started thinking about that as a kid, about what I’d do if I were a God. I came to the conclusion that at best, I would enter a body and live a bit among my creations for my own amusement. Given the idea that we were made in God’s image that has at least a little validity depending on what that phrase meant in ancient Hebrew or Aramaic.

As for a meaning of life, purpose would have to be determined by either the creator of a thing (God) or the one who uses it (us). A table is meant to support things in front of us, but if it’s nailed up against a window to keep out the encroaching zombies then its purpose is as a barricade. Now if God is Omnipotent and Omniscient, He would know how we’d act when set free and if He made us for a purpose we will fulfill it, otherwise He made a mistake. If He gave us free will and wanted us to use it, then He wanted us to choose our own purpose. Finally if there is no God/maker, then the best we can do is make our own purpose in life. Although we all have the “choice” to live for others according to their machinations as well.

Level 69 Hacker

“Trojan Horse Magnum”

Dunatis Posted:

I started thinking about that as a kid, about what I’d do if I were a God. I came to the conclusion that at best, I would enter a body and live a bit among my creations for my own amusement. Given the idea that we were made in God’s image that has at least a little validity depending on what that phrase meant in ancient Hebrew or Aramaic.

Is there a religion which thinks god created us to have something to **** around with?

And as far as purpose in life goes, we all can have a purpose that is relevant on earths scale, which is quite enough for me. On any larger scale our influence is minuscule at best for at least a couple of thousand ears ahead. Thus I think god could not even have any grander predetermined purpose for us. And as I said earths scale is too small to be relevant to a near omnipotent power. Ergo god has no reason to give a rats bum about us. Unless He just enjoys staring at how we kill each other, in which case earths scale would be just perfect, though still irrelevant to all those supernovas and whatnot.

And I find it easy to think free will exists. that said I also believe that it would be theoretically possible to foresee everything that goes on around here, had we a big enough “computer”. However that would require a computer very much larger than our universe, so that it could effectively simulate everything that goes on around here. I am practically talking running a 1 to 1 scale simulation in, say 10 times sped up. This would naturally have to occur outside our universe, and is theoretical at best, but you get the point.